


Between the Night and Morrow

by Ori_Cat



Series: For the world's more full of weeping [1]
Category: Chronicles of Ancient Darkness - Michelle Paver
Genre: Children In Danger, Gen, Ghosts, Kidnapping, Reposted following reviewal, the continuing quest to name everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-31 01:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13964601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ori_Cat/pseuds/Ori_Cat
Summary: Adults fight and children suffer; such is the way of the world.





	Between the Night and Morrow

She had run out of tears a while ago, and she had run out of voice to scream with a little after that, and she had run out of energy to try and pull her hands or feet free and get up, and now all she was left with was whispering. “Can anyone hear me?” 

“I hear you.” She turned her head so fast she struck it against the rock beneath, sending bolts of pain running through her skull, but she still saw nothing, other than a flash of light where the side of her eye pressed against the stone. But she had heard something, she knew she had, so she twisted her neck still further until her spine ached and the rock tore skin from her temple, and her eyes must have been beginning to adjust to the darkness, because there was a boy there. 

She was bad at telling how old people are (he was older than her but that was all she could see) but he sat like he was very young, back curved and knees drawn up; already barely there at all, only edges and shadows and dark grey against black, and trying to be even less there. 

There was very little colour in him, but she thought his hair was red like fire, half-hiding the tattoos on his neck. 

“Please, can you help me?” 

The boy only looked at her, tilting his head like a bird, and it was such a sad look. Wordlessly, he lifted his hands out from between his knees and chest, and there was rawhide wrapped around his wrists too, binding his forearms together. No, it meant. He could not help her, even if he wanted to. Her heart dropped down again and cracked on the inside of her ribs. 

“What is your name?” the boy asked, his head still set to the side. 

She blinked. What did her name matter, now? Here? There were monsters in the dark that could devour it, if she told. But he cared about her, and that was more than anyone had, recently. “Lif,” she answered. 

He smiled at that. She didn’t know how he could, in the damp and darkness and misery, but it looked real. “That’s a nice name. It’s pretty.” 

“What about your name?” If she kept talking, if she kept asking him questions she didn’t have to think about it, not about the pain or about the cold that was already leaking into her legs and side and ears, or about her parents and friends who wouldn’t know where she was, who wouldn’t know how to fetch her, that the man could do the same thing to - 

The boy shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think I lost it. Long time ago.” 

“I’m sorry,” she said, because that was the polite thing to do, when someone was sad and tragedy had come. That was what her mother said. 

“Wasn’t your fault. None of it was.” 

If nothing was her fault, though - She wouldn’t be punished if it wasn’t her fault. If she hadn’t been a bad person this wouldn’t be happening, though, would it? Even though she couldn’t name what she had done wrong. But the list was so long she wouldn’t know what it was anyway, and she thought she had been forgiven, and and and - 

It wasn’t fair, she wanted to cry. But she had said that, and the man had not listened. Oh, she wanted to go home so badly, she would never do anything wrong again. 

It was only when the boy spoke up again, very loud in the silence of the cave, that she realized she had been crying. Even without tears. “I know,” he said. “I know.” 

* * *

“Are you still there?” 

“Yes,” he answered. 

She’d grown more tears now; they slipped hot and sticky from her eyes, down her face, into her nose. “I am so lonely.” 

The boy sighed, leaned back into the wall. “I know.” 

“Talk to me,” she begged. Make me not be lonely. Or at least let me forget, for a little while. Let me run away from this terrible world. 

“What about?” 

“Anything.” Had she been picky, once? She thought she had, had asked people to tell her 

“I can tell you a story,” he said. “About the moon and her daughter the morning star.” 

“Okay.” She knew it already, of course. Her father had told her many times, while she had curled up on his lap within the circle of his arms when everything had been beautiful. And the boy didn’t tell it like he did, but maybe there was a different Otter version, and his voice wasn’t as good as her father’s but it was still nice, escaping like sparks into the air and hanging in the stillness. 

If it was a blanket, to protect her against the world, it was made only of cobwebs. But that was better than nothing. 

* * *

“Are they going to come for me? My family?” 

He pressed his hands up against his lips, thinking. It made him look a bit like a squirrel, if squirrels had red hair and went around on two legs. Back when she had been someone else, she would have laughed at that image, but there was no laughter left. Her store was all gone and drained away. 

It had sounded a bit like crying, hadn’t it? Laughter? 

“I don’t know,” the boy said. “They’ll try, though. I’m sure they’ll try.” 

She couldn’t tell whether she was sad or grateful that he hadn’t said yes. At least he hadn’t lied to her. 

People lied to her often, although they didn’t think she would know. That they were not angry. That the sick would get better. That the world was a good and safe and fair place and that all would be well. 

* * *

“Does it hurt?” she whispered. It was almost too faint for her to hear herself; she hoped he could. 

“Does what hurt?” 

“Dying.” She was so cold (her body had given up on shivering, for it would not warm her) and she was so hungry (even the monster with the sharp teeth had given up tearing at her abdomen and lay curled at the base of her ribs). At least there was water, always water in the cave, even if it tasted terribly bitter and was working on dissolving her starting with her fingers and toes. It wouldn’t have to wait much longer. 

“A little bit,” he answered, and the walls took the words and turned them back, _bit bit bit._ “But it doesn’t hurt for long.” 

* * *

What was happening to her? She was falling apart chunk by chunk, like melting snow releasing its gravel, and she thought the world should feel wrong, but she didn’t know what was supposed to be right. What was she becoming? 

She was - she was - maybe she wasn’t anything, but she had to answer it. But the answer swirled away. She was just raw ends of pain, and she didn’t realize she had been begging until the boy answered her. 

“You are Lif,” he said. “You are life. You can be strong.” 

No, she couldn’t. The darkness was sucking out all her strength and it was running inside her, up her nose and into her ears, thick and smooth as honey. There were monsters in the darkness and they would devour her name and her memories, they would devour all the light that she could remember. They would devour her voice and her hearing and her everything and she could not keep them out. She was so weak, she had forgotten what strong looked like. 

The boy shifted, from where he had been sitting, always, curled into the wall like he trusted it to protect him. Her heart clenched. “Do not leave me.” 

“No.” He knelt down before her. “I would never.” And he leaned forward and kissed her, on the temple, lightly as a falling leaf, like an older brother might have, if she’d had one. And it sat there upon her skin like a burning coal. 

She sobbed, once. It cast pain through all her bones, the movement, so she let herself go still again. “I-“ she started, but the end of the sentence unravelled and she could not pull it back, and the darkness swallowed it in one gulp. 

But he had still heard. “Wait. Wait until they come for you.” 

“But they might not.” 

“They will try. They will try as hard as they can. I promise you.” 

And she realized, all this time, that he had only ever spoken of her. “Will anyone come for you?” He was silent for a long time, and she thought maybe he had left, and she simply had not noticed, that the darkness had eaten that too. And why would he not? She was nothing, she was lost. No-one loved her, no-one would come. 

“No-one can save me,” he answered. “Not anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> While we’re on the subject of etymology, his name might have a root in the Norse word for corpse. Which is both awful and terribly brilliant.


End file.
